An article featuring Jack in True North Magazine.

True North Magazine is published each spring by the Journalism and Public Communications Department
at the University of Alaska Anchorage. It features topics relevant to Alaska's
unique lifestyle and culture, as well as subject about or affecting the University.

This article by Brad Williams has been nominated for the Hearst Award of Student Journalism Excellence.

The Bridge Between Two WorldsThe Term Half-Breed Gets a New Definition
By Brad Williams

Jack Dalton, 26, a writer and storyteller of half Yup'ik Eskimo and half
German descent, recalls meeting his birth mother for the first time at
age 22. "When I went to Hooper Bay, [Alaska], my mom gave me a Yup'ik
name, Cup'Luaraq. It means little reed pipe. Then she told me a little
story: ‘You see, when we are walking with the land and need to drink, we
use little reed pipe. You see when we are swimming with the water and
need to breathe we use little reed pipe. You see, little reed pipe is
the bridge between two worlds. Jack, you are the bridge between two
worlds.'"

Like many Alaska Natives of mixed lineage, Dalton faces the question of
what it means to be part Native in a modern, western society and still
bridge the gap between these two worlds.

Dalton's worlds first parted when he was only five days old. Given up
for adoption and flown from Bethel to Anchorage and raised by a
non-Native family. His parents told him about his adoption at age 5.
This was his first recollection of knowing he was different from the
rest of his family and others. He doesn't recall having role models.

"Because I was adopted, I had this idea that I couldn't be like the
people I was surrounded by." He found himself in an identity crisis
between what it meant to be Native and what it meant to be white
simultaneously.

"Being Native means constantly struggling to survive. Managing to do it
and being happy in spite of it," Dalton said. "I think there are very
few people on the earth good at being Native."

Tim Gilbert, 41, of Kotzebue takes pride in both his Inupiaq Eskimo and
Metlakatla Tsimshian Indian heritage. He struggled with identity as a
result of being raised by a non-Native adoptive family as well. "The
burden of learning my nativeness was solely on me," he recalled.

He moved to Kotzebue to be closer to his birth father's family and
assumed a position as the local hospital administrator. "Part of my
reason in coming up here was to find out what it means to be Inupiaq,"
he said. "To be exposed to more traditional ways of the Inupiaq."

Gilbert's children are half Navajo Indian, one quarter Inupiaq Eskimo,
and one quarter Tsimshian Indian. He encourages them to learn about
their heritage. "I was always pressing them to learn more about their
history."

Soon Gilbert's children will have to choose their tribal connection in
order to attain their Certificate of Indian Blood. He said that one
child is considering choosing Navajo, while the other might decide to be
registered tribally as Inupiaq.

The U.S. government allows tribes to determine one's status as a member
using the method of blood quantums. Once the blood quantums have
satisfied the tribe's minimum requirement and been verified by a birth
certificate, an applicant receives a blood certificate from the Bureau
of Indian Affairs.

Michael Jennings, head of the Native Studies Department at the
University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), points out that only four times in
the history of the world has a blood quantum identification been
required: "black" Koreans in Japan, Jewish people in Nazi Germany, South
African blacks and both Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the
United States. Jennings added, "The drive has been for 250 years to
assimilate Natives."

UAA's Associate Dean of Students and Professor of Anthropology, Kerry
Feldman, concurred that western people have been waiting for Native
Americans to be assimilated for hundreds of years. He feels that
assimilation in this case would mean completely absorbing Native
culture. However, he does not see that happening.

"Human beings have been mating on the borders for the past one and a
half million years," Feldman said. He points out that what is known as
race holds little merit from a biological standpoint. Variance in
ethnicity and genotypic differences make up humanity. "There are more
similarities in genes among humans than there are differences in
ethnicities." He feels that anthropologists in Alaska have not focused
on this topic near enough.

Historically speaking, since the 18th century, non-Natives have been
mixing with Alaska's Native population. Originally, the Aleuts were the
first to come into contact with foreigners. In 1743, Russian fur
hunters, or promyshlenniki, made their mark on the far-reaching Aleutian
chain and its indigenous people. They forced the Aleut men to do the
hunting while the Russians dallied with the Aleut women. As a result,
there are almost no known full-blooded Aleut people remaining today.

The Russians, followed by the British, Spanish, French, Chinese,
Scandinavians, Japanese and Germans, further lowered the blood quantum
levels among Alaska Natives.

Priscilla Hensley, 24, UAA student and dance choreographer, contends
with being categorized in both daily life and on paper, "I hate those
boxes where you have to check off your ethnicity. It's like you have to
choose which part of yourself you like best."

Hensley, daughter of Alaska Native activist, Willie Hensley, is Inupiaq
Eskimo, English, Irish, Scottish, French, and Lithuanian. As a little
girl she had always feared that the mixing of races would eventually
result in everyone being gray. Even now, she contemplates her "fear of
gray."

"I have some concern that there will be this bleaching of things." She
speaks of a type of "survivor's guilt."

"I get the benefit of looking white. I feel like I should put a sign on
myself that says ‘Look! I'm Native too!'" She adds, "I don't disappear
into either world. I'm something else altogether. To not be accepted
either way makes us a third thing."

This "third thing," the question of identity, comes up for many children
of mixed bloodlines.

The U.S. Census Bureau is also struggling with racial labels and how
they will apply to multiracial Americans on the national census in 2000.
The Advisory Board for the Effect on Multiracial Self-classification and
Census 2000 recognizes that inevitable changes will occur in the meaning
of race and racial groups. They are not finding any easy metaphors or
key slogans to describe what America is becoming.

The metaphors of a "melting pot" and "mosaic" fall short given what is
known today. The melting pot suggests a loss of identity, and mosaic
suggests that people will never come together, but rather maintain a
rigid separation.

Instead, according to the Census Advisory Board, America is becoming a
new society based on a fresh mixture of immigrants, racial groups,
religions and cultures, in search of a new language of diversity that is
inclusive and will build trust. There is no simple way to say what race
or racial groupings mean in America, because they mean very different
things to those who are either in or out of the target "racial" group.

Will Vandergriff, 20, is a UAA broadcasting major who is half Inupiaq
Eskimo, part Dutch, and part Cherokee Indian. He has strong feelings
about identity and where the race line is drawn. "When I think of Alaska
Natives, I think of angst. They tell me I'm anti-Native. They tell me I
don't appreciate my nativeness. They say I'm too white. When they see
me, they don't see an Alaska Native."

However, Vandergriff has seen both sides. Once, while on tour with an
under-17, all-star, national baseball team, a fellow teammate told him,
"We don't want anything that isn't 100 percent white American. So, you
can take your fat, lazy, Eskimo ass home."

His first memory of identifying himself as Eskimo was in eighth grade at
the Native Expo at West High in Anchorage, where he did wood carving.
"It was weird because they were talking in tongue and I couldn't
understand. I was there for seven hours. I did the dances and that was
fun."

Growing up in Anchorage, Vandergriff has had few opportunities to learn
the traditions of his ancestry. His mother invites him to her home to
partake of traditional foods and ways. "There's always lots of fish
every time we go to her house. She makes me mukluks [hand-made Eskimo
boots]," he said.

He learned how to seal hunt with his uncle, but regards traditional ways
with little value, "That's all well and good, but that's not going to
get me a job in the real world. Tradition is important, but you can't
base your life on it."

Synette Underwood, 26, is part Athabaskan and part Irish. She fishes
commercially with her family in Bristol Bay every summer. She recalls
once an acquaintance incorrectly assuming, "You carry on the Native
traditions. You fish." But Athabaskans have traditionally been caribou
herders, and their fishing has been strictly river dip netting, not open
sea drift or set netting. Her family has been commercial fishing for
more than 50 years. But it has little to do with traditional Native ways
and more with do economics. She feels there is a convergence taking
place. "You don't compromise one tradition for the other. You're taking
the best of both."

If taking the best of both is the key, then Phillip Blanchett, 24, is a
harbinger of things to come. Blanchett grew up in Bethel with his
mother, a Yup'ik Eskimo, and his father, an African American. "I felt so
honored to be a part of both backgrounds' heritage," he said. He never
felt the need to make a choice between the two. "I've always marked
myself on applications as black and Alaska Native."

He recalls a time in his childhood when he originally noticed a
difference, "The first memory I have of being aware that I was African
American was when I noticed my hair was different." Grinning and holding
his hands above his head, "It was a big afro. None of the other Eskimo
kids had hair like that."

As different as Eskimo and African American may seem, Blanchett believes
there is much more of a common bond that lies therein. At age 14, his
family moved to Anchorage and he found himself wondering how other kids
at his new school would think of him. Fortunately, his concerns were
unwarranted, "My first day at Bartlett [High School], I felt so accepted
by the black community."

Also welcomed by the Native community, he attended cultural events such
as the Native Olympics and the Arctic Winter Games. "I felt like myself
when I was around the Native community," he said. Blanchett's identity
issues did not arise as complications, but rather as affirmations. "I
always felt like I had something that no one could take away from me,"
he said. "I always felt blessed."

This sense of identity was instilled by his family on both his mother's
and father's sides. His father, David Blanchett, grew up in
Philadelphia's inner city and never let him forget who he was, "You're a
Blanchett," he would always say, encouraging pride in his son. "Every
time you write your name, write out your full name."

That attitude has taken Blanchett far. In fact, it took him to Greenland
and back, where his wife Karina is from. Karina, Phillip, his brother
Stephen, and their cousin Ossie Kairaiuak formed the group Pamyua
[BUM-yo-ah]. Pamyua blends traditional Inuit and Yup'ik Eskimo song and
dance with gospel, jazz and a touch of what Blanchett calls "MTV, break
dancing, hip-hop and KGOT [radio]." Also known as Afro-Yup'ik music,
their style is as original as their backgrounds.

As a child, he watched his mother perform traditional Yup'ik dances and
thought about how he would perform if he were dancing. Now he's doing
just that. "Diversity is what we bring to the performance; diversity,
and then think further." This convergence of traditional format combined
with a contemporary style is how Pamyua manifest their own unique
expression of cultural fusion.

Wanda Conley, 31, a half Inupiaq Eskimo and half Irish UAA student,
participates in traditional ways such as Native drumming and ivory
carving. But she feels Native traditions are not always the best
approach. "They [Natives] are fighting so hard to keep their identity,
they are pushing out what can be gained. We like what the white culture
can give us, but we are trying to keep the old."

Conley has lived in both worlds -- literally. And it hasn't always been
pleasant. While living at Pt. Hope, above Alaska's Arctic Circle, she
experienced another side of being multiracial. "I was treated badly by
the Natives. Then when I moved to Anchorage, I was treated badly by the
whites."

Prejudice works both ways, as Tim Schuerch, 33, a part Inupiaq, part
European mix, knows all too well. Growing up between Kiana and Kotzebue,
Schuerch has dealt with discrimination as well. Natives always perceived
him as white. "I remember being beat up in school because I was ‘white,"
he said. "Kids would tease me by stealing my hat or my scarf." However,
he did not always stand alone. "There were also kids who had a sense of
justice."

Schuerch recognizes justice. He holds a jurist doctor and recently
passed the bar examination. After graduating from Southern Methodist
University in Dallas, Texas, he returned to Alaska to apply for a job at
Maniilaq Corporation in Kotzebue. "I applied as a Native at Maniilaq
because I understand the politics," he said. "I wanted them to look at
my application and say ‘He's one of us.'" He currently holds the
position of special assistant to the president of Maniilaq.

He light-heartedly refers to himself as a "half-breed street rat" and
takes little credence in its original meaning. "It's hard for me to take
umbrage at the term half-breed," he said.

One of MTV's "The Real World" Boston finalists, Cana Welm, considers the
label half-breed, in reference to her mixed lineage of Inupiaq Eskimo
and German, to be a "very precise term."

Welm recalls her tryout for "The Real World" and how people made
assumptions about her based on her looks and ethnicity. "When I was in
California, I was Alaska Cana," she said. "I was Eskimo-girl."

As with most mixed marriages, her parents came from very different
backgrounds. "My mom was born on a caribou mat and my dad was born in a
castle in Germany."

Born and raised mostly in Kotzebue, Welm spent her junior high and
college years in Berkeley, Calif. Now living in Kotzebue again, she
feels that people's stereotypes and assumptions about her have reversed.
"I've seen the extremes on both sides," she said. "You don't want to be
seen as an outsider when you live here."
Outsider opposed to Native. White versus Eskimo. Modern eliminating
tradition. Blood quantums and heritage. These controversies all beg the
question, "What does it mean to be Native?"

Being Native is a perception. Being Native is an identity. Being Native
is where you are from. Being Native is who you are. But being
multiracial in Alaska today questions all these statements and more.

Jack Dalton attempts to address the question: "There's this idea that
being Native means you are closer to nature and somehow more spiritual."
However, for people of mixed lineage, "being Native" is not quite so
simple. "The Native part of themselves has more to do with their outlook
on life," he adds. "When you come right down to it, labels cannot define
you."

He feels that applications corner him into being something he does not
relate to. "Other' is not a race," Dalton said.

When people ask what it is like being bi-racial, Dalton tells them that
it is like having two people living inside of him at the same time. "One
is the Eskimo elder, who is humble and wise with a lot of important
things to say. The other is the proud German who demands that I go out
there to say those things." he said.

"Because I'm a half-breed, people think I would have less of an idea of
where I'm from," he said. These "two sides" have not always agreed upon
everything, but Dalton has found his own answer. "You can either take
the good of both and make yourself a better person. Or you can take the
worst of both and be self destructive."

As with many Natives of multiracial backgrounds, Dalton has wrestled
with his identity as well as how others perceive him. Although for
Dalton, who has bridged that gap, the struggle has come to an end. "I
identify myself as Jack Dalton and when I have time," he said, " I tell
them a really neat story."

All information, programs, titles, images and design are Copyright 1999 by Jack Dalton